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Adams aims to 'redefine coaching' with Lockr

By

Erin Bell '15

March 31, 2014

Raymonn Adams ’01 had a few frustrations when he was the running back coach at Doane, one of them being organization.

“It is hard for coaches to actually take all their coaching materials and drills and stay organized,” he said. “Everything is scattered out; like for example, all my drills are in a box in the basement, scattered out on VHS, old DVDs. It wasn’t only the box in my basement. It was folders in my filing cabinet.”

But he thought of a solution: Lockr. It’s an online platform that gets coaches organized, allowing them to sort drills, measure player progress and share materials with other coaches all in one place.

“Lockr allows you to get organized by taking all that stuff, digitizing it and putting it online in one location,” Adams said. “Now I have that stuff with me, all I have to do to get ready for practice is drag it into today’s schedule so I’m ready automatically.”

In addition to coaching at Doane, Adams played football when he attended and studied mass communications. All his knowledge of web design and and development is self-taught. After his playing career at Doane, he later played in the Canadian Football League, NFL Europe and spent time in the New York Jets training camp as a running back.

“My experience brought me to the idea,” Adams said. “One of the things I couldn’t do and couldn’t do well was share a play with a fellow staff member.”

So he asked himself how the process could be simplified.

Head Football Coach Matt Franzen '94 coached with Adams when he worked at Doane.

“As a coach, the biggest thing from Raymonn - his strongest suit - was his energy, both verbally and physically,” Franzen said. “He’d wear his cleats to practice so he could demonstrate plays. He could outrun most of the players.”

Franzen said early on while coaching, Adams told him that he had an idea that was going to go big: an Internet idea.

“Knowing him, I just kind of nodded my head,” Franzen said. “When he finally put it together, he came down here to Doane and asked what we thought about some things. I think it’s going to be a big deal.”

During Lockr’s beta, more than 150 coaches signed up to try the app and Adams said teams like Stanford University and Missouri State University use the platform.

“(Lockr) actually spans all the way from professional (teams) to high school,” he said.

Adams said he’s working on expanding to other sports beyond football, including baseball, basketball, track, volleyball and soccer.

“We are going to expand to multiple sports,” he said. “I think the most important thing is that now the coach has the ability to measure what he is working on most with an athlete. That’s where we redefine coaching."